Business Messages helps Vidéotron resolve technical questions 50% faster
Founded in 1964, Vidéotron consistently ranks as Québec’s most respected telecommunications provider. Known for innovation and high levels of customer satisfaction, the company offers TV, streaming entertainment, internet, and wireless services in French-speaking Canada.
Vidéotron, Montréal, Québec, Canada
www.videotron.com
4hrs
to set up and deploy
50%
reduction in average handle time
67%
of conversations resolved in channel
82%
CSAT score
“Vidéotron's agile approach to digital care made it easy to add Google’s Business Messages into their existing Khoros workflows — and it's already making a big impact on customer satisfaction and agent efficiency.”
Chris Tranquill, Chief of Strategy at Khoros
Customers chat with Vidéotron
through Google Search
The summary
Vidéotron implemented Google's Business Messages in late 2020 as part of its strategy to offer customers a simple, easily accessible way to interact with the company through the digital channels they were already using. Business Messages was a hit with both customers and customer service representatives: customers got faster responses, agents were able to resolve two-thirds of conversations within the channel, and there has been a 2X increase in inquiry volume efficiency with AHT dropping from 10 minutes down to 5.
The challenge
As part of its ongoing digital transformation initiative, Vidéotron was looking for innovative ways to expand its engagement with customers in familiar digital channels, including phone, community forums, and social media messaging platforms. Vidéotron also wanted to give customers more self-service capabilities while providing a simple way to ask questions or troubleshoot issues since the majority of Vidéotron customers try to get answers themselves before calling. A key objective for Vidéotron was to resolve customer interactions in the channels where they occurred.
The approach
When its customer engagement platform and longtime partner Khoros suggested a test of Google's Business Messages in November 2020 as a messaging channel for technical support and customer service inquiries, Vidéotron saw it as a natural fit with its digital-first approach. The test was one of Vidéotron's first milestones in testing asynchronous messaging and evaluating customer response as Vidéotron plans to roll out richer, more engaging and autonomous experiences.
Working with Google and Khoros, Vidéotron easily set up Business Messages, integrated it into existing workflows, and deployed it to Google Search and Maps within a few hours. Today, two to four agents support the channel during business hours, concurrent with other messaging channels, including social media. The implementation of Business Messages with Khoros was smooth and seamless, as Vidéotron's agents were already familiar with the Khoros platform and needed no additional training.
The results
Vidéotron's test of Google's Business Messages was such a clear success that the company immediately decided to expand its use. With Business Messages, Vidéotron's agents can answer customer questions much faster, reducing average handle time (AHT) by 50 percent. In fact, agents completed two-thirds of customer conversations within Business Messages; only about one-third needed to move to a live phone call, mainly in cases where authentication was required.
Additionally, 70 percent of the Business Messages inquiries were technical questions rather than customer service issues like billing. Now, when customers search for technical answers, Vidéotron is able to intercept them early and reduce customer effort. This has increased what were already high levels of satisfaction to 82%, easily exceeding industry CSAT benchmarks. Meanwhile, asynchronous messaging has also enabled agents to handle a higher volume of conversations than they were able to with synchronous messaging.
Vidéotron plans to continue expanding its use of Google’s Business Messages, especially since its experience has shown that customers are willing to use asynchronous messaging to engage on a wide range of topics. Vidéotron expects chat to be a major vector of growth as the company builds its digital capabilities and engages customers with a mobile-first approach. Google's Business Messages is a natural fit within Vidéotron's omnichannel strategy and is the company’s most efficient customer interaction channel. The innovative communication tool enhances results by minimizing interaction costs while reducing average handle time.
"Our mission is to help brands create customers for life, and using messaging channels for rich customer service is one of the best ways to do it" - Chris Tranquill, Chief of Strategy at Khoros.